POTW2012 - Week 4 - Shadow

My intent for this week's theme dovetailed nicely with my intent to try stand developing for the first time.

Stand (or, in this case, semi-stand) development uses a very dilute developing solution, and very little agitation. It's used as a compensating development method to bring out shadow detail and increase apparent dynamic range. By letting the film sit undisturbed, the highlight areas develop quickly, but exhaust the developer touching them just as quickly. The shadow areas develop much more slowly, and can sit undisturbed for long periods of time without depleting the active developer. In this way, your highlights don't blow out, but you can still see details in the shadows. It's one part exposure, by exposing correctly for the shadows, one part developing, and three parts patience. Letting a roll of film sit in the tank for forty minutes, only agitating once at the beginning and once halfway through was a new one for me.

I will point out that I don't think I was completely successful - the highlight areas in image below are, obviously, not blown out, as there's quite a bit of detail in the light fixture. The shadowed areas, frankly, could be a bit darker. I did 'shop some color back into the image. It needed something, and the clearest picture I had in my head of this composition was the red "< EXIT" on the sign.



So, no setup here, film and all, but, this is my "recipe" if you will:

Exposed to put the shadows in Zone III (I metered on the ducts, to the bottom-left of the sign)
Developed in 600ml 68-degree water plus 6ml of HC-110.
One minute agitation, sit for 20 minutes, 15 seconds of agitation, sit for another 20 minutes.
2 minutes in the stop, constant agitation.
5 minutes in Kodak fixer, agitate for first 90 seconds, then 5 inversions every minute thereafter.
5 minutes in Hypo.
5 minute rinse, Photo-flo, 5 more minutes of rinsing


I wish I would have had my 60D with me, to get a comparison shot on digital. I'm fairly confident saying that if I had made the same shot, at the same settings, you would have seen the shadows, but the light fixture and surrounding ductwork would have been clipped.

POTD 76 of 365

So - my first foray into push processing went...That's it, just went.

The negs are still wet, so, I can't scan them yet, but, to my untrained eye, they look underexposed. I can see detail, to be sure, but, they're very light right now, which, of course, translates into very dark once the colors get inverted. We'll see how they turn out.

I've also got a milky streak on my negatives that I've never seen before. It looks like it wasn't fixed enough, but, if anything, I over-fixed and over-agitated it, because my previous two development cycles left me with purple negatives, and I'd hoped to remedy that by a slight increase in fixing time, coupled with a longer and more vigorous rinse. It may be that the streaks will disappear as the negs dry, and the only reason I've never seen this before is that I didn't scrutinize my wet negatives the same way I've examined these.

In shooting-related news, I took a few shots of a tree today, once with a red filter, one with green, and one with yellow. Of the three, I expect the yellow will be the one I like the most, but, that's all going to depend on the exposure now, isn't it?

We'll see where it goes. The negs are drying pretty quickly, so, I may kill some time to see if I can put at least 12 frames on the scanner before bed.

And, yup. Way too dark. Pretty much all of the shots on the roll were too dark. I fixed what I could in Photoshop, but, it appears I need to either increase my development times, or, maybe just pick a lower ISO on the camera.



No detail on the tree, and this required a ton of adjustment in PS. Well, live and learn, right?

POTD 74 of 365

Placeholder this evening - trying a new (to me) film technique, and I'm trying to burn up this roll as quickly as possible.

Basically, I've got my camera set to ISO 1600, with a film speed of 400. Once the roll is shot, I'll "push" the film by increasing the developing time to try to bring out the detail in the otherwise underexposed film.

I know D76 developer isn't ideal for push processing, so I'm expecting some pretty grainy results, but, it's what I've got, and, quite frankly, the vast majority of my shots would have been better if I'd left the lens cap on, so a little grain won't hurt.

We'll see what we get when we get it.

And, we got it.



Blurry - ISO 1600 (especially on ISO 400 film) is still a little to slow to hand-hold indoors, at night, with a filter, but, I kind of knew that based on how the camera metered. Still, I took the shot, so, I've got nobody to blame but myself.

POTD 72 of 365

Film, cat, sore back. Book it. Done.